Ashton-Tate Corp reports from Torrance that seven of the most vociferous US software and hardware companies provided information to the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department for a sting operation on November 27 against six major software piracy syndicates: involved were Apple Computer, Ashton-Tate Corp, Autodesk, IBM, Lotus Development Corp, Microsoft Corp and Wordperfect Corp and some 60 Hong Kong Customs and Excise inspectors, who raided nine locations on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories and made 10 arrests of people involved in the warehousing, distribution and export of counterfeit software; inspectors confiscated over 20,000 phony manuals and disks of dBase III Plus, Lotus 1-2-3, Wordperfect, MS-DOS and other software programs with estimated worth of $257,000, making it the largest raid ever in terms of value of goods seized; under direction of Ashton-Tate deputy general counsel Thomas Chan, a Hong Kong private investigation firm gathered information for the raid from undercover surveillance at six counterfeit software shops.
